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Design News: September 18

As Canada’s largest cultural celebration of design, it is our duty to keep our ears to the ground searching for the latest news making waves, whether big or small, in the art and design community. Through our series Design News, readers will have the chance to learn about the things happening in our networks.

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch reveals our disappearing landscapes

As our landscapes continue being shaped by humans, Mother Nature has fallen into the background of our lives. “The abstract landscapes that human activity has conjured – whether through digging, dumping, deforesting, or dredging – is the subject of Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, the latest work by Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal, and Nicholas de Pencier.” The film touches on how our world has become “…the Anthropocene – an epoch whose defining characteristic is that humans are now shaping the Earth more than all natural systems combined….at the expense of the environment.” With current weather conditions in the USA, like Tropical Storm Florence, we need to see how our landscapes are truly being affected by our actions that directly contribute to global warming. “What’s needed is political and popular will – a bold stance to redesign the world, if only for our own species’ survival.”

Speculum redesigned for 21st century

It has been a while since the speculum has been successfully redesigned and adopted by physicians. In fact, “the current design of the speculum, fashioned by American physician James Marion Sims, dates back to the 1840s.” Since women have had to endure this uncomfortable test for centuries, “… one review of the medical literature found that some women even avoid the gynecologist because of the dreaded device.” However, a team of women at Frog have taken on this problem. One of their ideas is “…to cover the whole thing in autoclavable silicone—a material that wouldn’t feel cold, could be easily sterilized, and would make insertion more comfortable.” The team also realized that “if they wanted to redesign the speculum, they had to redesign the entire experience.” The Frog team continues to work on the early stages of the Yona project and hopes that they will get support from the medical industry to move it forward.

Rebranding the Toronto Public Library

Rebranding projects are always a great way for a re-fresh or may also mark the beginning of a new chapter for a brand. “Wysp, the agency exploring the new idea, has re-titled the library the ‘Toronto Resource Centre,’ which pays respect to the fact that the TPL actually has way more going for it than just books.” This makes complete sense, since the library is currently a host to multi-media resources, workshops, speaker series and even 3D printing.“The blue and white palette has been scrapped in favour of a more colourful one, to represent the huge variety of programming and resources available at the TPL.” This would be a neat project for TPL to undergo if they catch wind of it, since “the entire rebranding is hypothetical, of course, but those interested in the process can check it out on Wysp’s website.”